Saturday, June 27, 2009

Kudos to the Eclipse Galileo Developers!

When 40% of all the commercial projects are failing due to one or the other reasons, the technique and style of the eclipse developers have successfully delivered one more annual release of Eclipse Galileo. This is one of the modern wonders. Nothing more than a set of 'strong minds' are required for this kind of achievement.

Any great idea can be spoiled by a careless mind. The same way, any small idea can be turned to a master piece by a great mind. The story of two magicians which wouldn't bring much excitement, when it got into the hands of a director like Christopher Nolan; it turned out to be one of my favourite movie and greatest hits. If you haven't watched the movie 'The Prestige', I urge you to watch it as soon as possible.

The enthusiasm and vibrancy of the hundreds of minds in the Eclipse community, the electric current generated by their thoughts; these are still attracting lot of new people to the community. Framework projects, RnD projects, graphical projecs, modelling projects, bio projects ....

There were many arguments last year. The complexity of some of the frameworks, the simplicity of some of the tools; the anger towards some of the eclipse processes; the sadness when the expected features had to be dropped out of the final delivery, the happiness when the customer/end user said '"See this new feature, Wow'".

Lot of emotions and lot of memories. The emotions which starts in the brain of a single person, when backed by the support of a highly motivated community results in successes similar to what happens in our Eclipse community.

Open source is not a charity always. Hundreds of businesses are thriving upon the open source model. When one of the basic values of humans is followed, ie, 'give and then take'; it results in success and content feeling. When we are following our values, when we are backed by a community with the same set of values, we are at our best.

Many team members were flexing their brain muscles for a long time. Then one of them said on 24th of June, "Guys, we are done for the year"; Its time to relax and celebrate now. Some celebrate the success over a cup of coffee, some over the dance floor and some with a vacation trip.

Life goes on; Eclipse goes on; Next year e4 is one of the most anticipated outputs from the community.

I dedicate this blog to all those gurus who developed the basic eclipse framework and donated it to the open source community; to those who still develop new frameworks in the open source; You people dared to go to the wild, never knowing the dangers behind the hidden rocks and trees, you cleared the path for the rest of us.

I like to convey my gratitude to the hardwork of the hundreds of developers who has worked towards the success of galileo, "Dudes, you all have done a great job. You guys are making our jobs easier".

How can this kind of success be repeated in the high percentage of failing commericial projects?

You need to think out of the bondaries of your organizations, you need to come out of your conventional thoughts, you need to use your brain for what it is designed. "Share" and put some thought behind it, you will start to get the returns. As Robert C Martin says, don't sprint, run the marathon. When your muscles get tired and gets deprived of energy, its your mind which needs to give strength. If the mind losses focus, then the body will fail, our actions become meaningless and the projects fail.

Focus on what you need to achieve. Put your mind and body for it. The results will follow. Its all a mind game. You are a reflection of your mind!

madhu

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